XCOM: Enemy Within
by JohnLocke94
Summary: Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or not. Both are equally terrifying. And so begins XCOM, the first start of what I hope will someday become a true saga. What is humanity, after all? How much of that little spark in us is human? Rated M for future violence, language, and some sexuality. No offense intended, simply depictions of war.
1. Roanoke 1

**_"Those who play with the devil's toys_**

**_Will be brought by degrees_**

**_To wield his sword"_**

**_~R. Buckminster Fuller_**

_*static*_

…

My name is Adrianna.

It's taken from a form of Anna, which in turn is taken from the Hebrew name Hannah.

Hannah was a prophetess of old, so the Bible tells. If you follow that train of thought, I suppose the story that's coming won't be too surprising. It wasn't to me, anyway.

I don't know how these kinds of stories generally start, so I'll start at the beginning. The year was 2015, and the world was going all to hell. Nation fought against nation, people against people, the economy was in the toilet, and I had just graduated college with a degree in Art.

Yeah, I know. Art. Don't know what I thought I was going to use that for.

I'd seen a fair amount of the world by now, and thought I knew what was going on. I'd make a name for myself as an artist, then raise a family. That was the plan, and it might have worked out (with some minor kinks) if I hadn't decided to visit Germany at exactly the wrong time.

The city of Munich was in flames. Everyone had been running around screaming their heads off, and one by one the screams fell silent. Apparently I was one of the only ones to think of going inside an actual building and staying there instead of running through the streets being scooped up by that green… stuff.

_*sigh*_

Humans are idiots, aren't we. God, until that day, I hadn't thought that people actually took their cues from those old disaster movies.

Anyway. I hid in there for about an hour, until I heard some noises coming from outside. Noises that didn't sound like they were human at all.

I waited until they'd moved past, then snuck as quietly as I could to the window. Outside, I could see the bodies of some of the _polizeibeamte _scattered around, the smell of their death strong in the air. From what I could see, they hadn't even had a chance to draw their guns.

I crept out as quietly as I could and nicked a pistol. Figured that they wouldn't be needing them anymore. I looked to the left and the right – and up, I'm not about to be taken for an idiot – but didn't see anything, so I popped back inside the store and waited by the window. Someone would come eventually.

When they did it nearly gave me a heart attack, though. A huge… what _was_ that thing, anyway? Like a cross between a helicopter, a jet, and some other weird crap. Whatever it was, it came drifting down slowly and smoothly – so softly I didn't hear it until it was only a foot or so away from landing next to the burned out cars.

I didn't want to get caught in any crossfire – better their skins than mine – so I figured I'd wait until it seemed safe. Men and women in body armor with guns didn't seem safe at all, especially considering they all looked ready to shoot at the first thing in sight. They moved up on a warehouse and went inside, one by one.

Everything seemed relatively quiet, so I slipped behind a window further up, watching.

It was when I saw two small, shadowy figures moving to the side of the warehouse that my heart jumped into my throat.

Those soldiers in there – they had no idea those things were coming. They'd be killed, and then I'd be stuck in this God-forsaken city for who knows how long.

Not on my watch.

I ran as quietly as I could after them, but it was too late – they'd already gone inside. I heard an explosion from within, maybe some kind of grenade? I wasn't sure. I gripped the pistol I'd grabbed from the dead man tightly in my hand.

Sounds of gunfire followed, gunfire and some other kind of weird weapon. I didn't recognize it, it sounded all electronic and crackly, like something out of a bad sci-fi movie from the 50's.

_*laughs*_

I guess that's kind of appropriate, huh? At the time I could hardly think except for a kind of cold, detached thought that those people in body armor were fighting – and maybe dying – in there, and how dare they for doing that when they were the only ones who could get me out of here.

I heard a skittering sound, and turned. There were two more of those things, and this time I got a better look at them. They were skinny, almost skeletal, with big dark eyes and a weird yellow glow on their chests. The heads seemed too big for the body; I would've thought that any creature with heads that made for targets that good wouldn't make it too long.

I realized that if they made it in, there wasn't a chance in hell the four soldiers that had gone in could get out of there alive.

People later, they think that it must have been so brave for some art student to do what I did. It wasn't, really. It was just common sense. We had to win, you know. I had to get out of there, and I wasn't going to do it if those things lived.

So I aimed my pistol at the head of the first one and emptied the clip into it, already grabbing for the extra I'd picked up.

It had weird blood. Kind of a yellow-green, made me think of puke, and the consistency was pretty close to it as well. It splattered more than I thought it would – thing must've had a glass skull – and the other one gave a little screech in shock and started ducking away. It didn't even raise the glowing pistol it was gripping; I think it was just shocked that its buddy had been killed. These things weren't the proper type for combat. They didn't have the mind for it.

I'd handled guns a few times before, with my family back home doing skeet shooting, and these things (whatever they were) presented a lot better of a target than most of what I'd aimed at before.

The second one died just like its buddy had. You couldn't miss those big heads if you tried.

I was lucky, really, that was all. Just lucky. If there'd been any more of them I wouldn't have made it, I'd only grabbed the one spare clip.

The gunfire inside had died down, and I moved around to the front carefully, holding my now-useless pistol to my side. I could still use it to hit someone, after all.

One man walked out of the front of the warehouse. Even from my distance, I could tell that there was something wrong with his expression. It was… broken, somehow. There was a small flag of Argentina on the back of his armor, and I figured that it was worth risking discovery so long as he spoke English.

"Hey!" I yelled at him. "Hey, over here!" I walked up slowly and carefully, making a big show of throwing my pistol away to prove I was unarmed. If he was safe, then it wouldn't matter. If he wasn't, I already had at least three different ways out of here that would work before he could bring his gun up to me.

He looked at me blankly for a moment, then brought up a hand up to his ear and said in a low, accented voice, "Central. Found a survivor."

There was a brief pause while he listened to the voice on the other end, then he looked up and said gruffly, "How'd you survive?"

I shrugged. "Killed a couple of those bug-eyed freaks back there with a pistol I picked up. How'd you?"

My question stops him for a second before he holds a hand to his ear and mumbles an answer.

Finally he looks up.

"You're to come with me. Back to base."

He turns, and I'm obviously expected to follow with no argument. Not that I was about to offer any, I just want to get out of here, and to somewhere where someone knows what's going on.

We climb in the back of the air vehicle he calls the "Skyranger" and strap ourselves in. It's a rattling old thing, sounds like it hasn't been upgraded since the 70's at the least.

"My name is Victor Chavez." His voice came sudden in the noisy place, the thick accent making it even harder for me to work out what he'd said.

Trying to make my voice as loud as I could without shouting, I answered.

"Mine's Adrianna Coe. I'm an art student, I've been traveling overbroad to…"

He interrupted me.

"Their names were Chris Hudson. Kaori Goto. Sergey Smirnov. They were good people."

I stayed silent, not sure how to respond, or even if I was supposed to. He stayed silent as well. The rest of the flight was what you might call "awkward".

I didn't see where we were going – there were no windows, and I've never been good with geography anyway. All I know was that it felt like we were going fast, and then slow, and then down.

The hatch popped open and Victor stalked out silently, not saying a word, not looking back.

I followed, hoping that wherever we were, it was someplace with a bathroom. That flight had taken a few hours.

As I stepped towards a hallway, a man with a horrifically ugly green sweater called me over. Despite his dress sense and generally smarmy demeanor, he had the appearance of someone in charge, so I stepped his way as he held out a hand.

"I'm Central Officer Bradford," he began, "and I'd like to welcome you to XCOM HQ. I heard you did rather well out there."

I raised an eyebrow.

"First," I began briskly, "I'd like to know what XCOM stands for, because it's been driving me half-crazy the whole way here. Second, I'm pretty sure that those were aliens, and I'd just love to hear that story as well. Third, I think that 'rather well' doesn't quite cover an art student killing two aliens."

One thing I had to give the guy, he had a truly excellent poker face. His expression never changed once as he answered me.

"Fair enough. You want to know secrets, then. Well, that's easy enough. Just join up with XCOM. The pay will be awful, the environment ridiculously dangerous, and there's no death insurance. What's your name, miss, and do you have a family?"

I nodded. "My name's Adrianna Coe, and I have a family, all right. They're in California right now. They're good people. Will they be safe through all of this, or will I get a message one day that they've been found dead in a probing bed?"

His expression stayed the same, with not a single deviation. "They'll be as safe as they would be if you weren't an XCOM soldier. That may not be very much, I should warn you. Alien life nowadays seems somewhat... hostile."

"It wasn't before?"

"You know what I meant. Now get along – I have to report to the Commander. The signage should get you to the barracks."

With that, he turned and walked away. As ordered, I followed the signs that said "Barracks" on them. As I walked, I considered my new life. I'd have to give a change of address at the very least. I'd have to be ready for any combat that might come. Why the hell was XCOM hiring a civilian, anyway? Hopefully I'd have plenty of time for my drawing.

When I stepped through the doors, I saw a pair of men in white coats carrying something out of one of the rooms.

"What's happening?" I asked.

I had to repeat the question a couple of times before an attractive woman whose bedside sign said, "Patel, Varsha" answered.

"It's Victor Chavez. Mad bastard put up pictures of his dead squadmates on the Wall of the Fallen, and after that…"

The men in white coats were carrying a body bag, and I understood even before she made the universal symbol of holding a finger gun to one's head, cocking it, and pulling the trigger.

I looked at the giant "X" that was inscribed in the badges I saw everywhere, and the words above it.

"What does it mean?"

She gave a grim grin. "It means hopeful words for people with not much hope. Sure, the nations say they'll band together, but they won't put anything into it. It's just words. They barely give us any funds, and they give us no soldiers at all – all of us here, we're all just volunteers."

I gave a polite smile. "That's very nice, but it's not a translation."

She shrugged. "Sorry if I thought I'd found someone who listened to what was being said, instead of the words only. In any case, it's Latin, obviously. The translation's been a bit tricky for all of us, so we asked the Commander. What he said seemed to sum it up quite well."

"He said, I am watchful. I am necessary."

**Vigilo Confido**

...

...

...

...

...

_Hello, loyal fantasticks!_

_XCOM: Enemy Within is out, and so I may provisionally start on this dear story of mine, which (no doubt to the utter confusion of all) I'm simply calling "XCOM: Enemy Within". It may be considered a prequel to my other XCOM story, but if you like this one better please feel free to ignore the other as non-canon territory, and revel in the True XCOM Splendor that I hope to bring._

_Voila! Chapter 1. And chapters will be coming quite quickly until Chapter 4 or so, as I've been working on these beforehand with the plan to change them into the Enemy Within continuity._

_~The Once and Future Overlord_


	2. Roanoke 2

**Vigilo Confido**

…

_*static*_

I'd only had a day to train before the call came. Bradford's Commander – whoever he was – sent orders that had my name on the Skyranger, along with three names I vaguely remembered from when I'd moved in. My squadmates were to be a round-faced girl named Ellen Reach, a swarthy man named Benjamin Angel who insisted that everyone call him "Ben", and a quiet sort named Christopher McKay.

Our equipment looked to be good, if somewhat old and well-used. The body armor in particular was good, and looked as if it would stop several rounds before failing. Gun-wise we were doing all right as well. Everyone was carrying AK-47's, which seemed serviceable to say the least, as well as .44 AutoMags for sidearms.

Bradford kept telling everyone to hurry up, move faster. I personally think he would've been more helpful if he'd kept his trap shut. An officer who'd screwed first contact with alien life didn't have much a right to anything, and I could only hope that the new Commander, whoever he was, was a bit better at this sort of thing.

The Skyranger was just as creaky, rattling, and old as it had been two days ago, and most of the trip over was spent in silence. On the last leg of it, though, Ellen Reach spoke up.

"So…" she began hesitantly. "What's the plan?"

The four of us looked around, and realized that we were all the same rank. Finally, Ben Angel answered.

"Move carefully would be my best advice. Once we get on the ground, Commander Kinkade should give us our formation orders, and we'll be able to move in that way. As for the actual movement, though, just be slow about it. Look around for enemies after every _twitch_, and you should be all right."

The three of us nodded as the Skyranger descended, landing in… Where was it Bradford had said again? Some small town in Nevada, Panaca was the name. Panaca, Nevada.

We'd landed in front of an office building, that much was clear. The four of us moved out cautiously, crouching behind some tall flower boxes and a lamp.

"Watch out," Ben hissed, and we all took a moment to look for enemy movement. When none was forthcoming, we moved closer to the building, as slowly as we could.

It wasn't slow enough, though. As Ellen moved in, she gave a shout and flattened her back to the office building's wall, facing the rest of us. Loading her AK, she gave the signal that meant "Enemy Spotted" and gestured for the squad to get down.

I watched as she peeked around the corner, wondering what she could be seeing that was giving her such a confused expression. Her hands moved to her head as she activated her headset that connected her to the rest of us, and she whispered to me.

"Anna, peek your head out. Can you see them?"

Daring a brief glance out, I saw two of the same bug-eyed aliens from Germany, but there was something wrong about them. A wavy purple streamer that looked to be made of light was moving from one to the other, and the one it was moving into looked… stronger, somehow. More resilient.

"I've seen these things before," I whispered back, "I think we can take them. We'll combine fire on the one who's sending out that streamer thing, got it?"

She gave a quick nod, and held up a hand with fingers counting down.

Three.

Two.

One.

Time to see if those hours at the range yesterday had made a difference at all.

The sound of our rifles firing tore through the silent night. Ellen's bullets hit the thing's chest, mine it's head, and it flew backwards with a death squeal. To everyone's surprise, as the purple streamer disappeared, the strengthened one gave a cry of pain and collapsed as well.

"Commander," Ellen said softly, "the weapons they were carrying – they fell apart when the ones carrying them were killed."

"Understood," came a voice over the comm, "now move up and see if there's any more."

The squad nodded as a unit, and we slowly moved further towards the office building. In only seconds, though, I'd spotted two more, turning towards us with that mouthless scream of theirs as they drew the odd guns with their long, grey fingers.

Before I could give any thought to the matter, I found myself raising my assault rifle to my shoulder and opening fire into the one farthest from us, as a second stream of gunfire downed the other.

Apparently Ben had the same reflexes I do.

I hadn't even known what that feeling was, when it came. It felt like what I was born for. It felt like painting a beautiful picture when you've got the image in your head and you just know it's going to be a masterpiece. From then on, I knew what I was meant for. Meant to have a gun in my hands, meant to aim it as best I could at whatever enemies I saw. Meant to take them down.

_*silence, the sound of a deep breath*_

Well. A quick sweep of the area revealed that we'd gotten all of the X-Rays there. How they'd gotten there, we didn't know, and wouldn't for some time to come. Whatever they were there for, they might have already swept it away.

At least the ride back was a bit more cheerful than the last time I'd been in the Skyranger. Ben even cracked a couple of jokes, and Ellen was laughing so hard I thought she'd burst her body armor. I've always found that it's best to be a bit understated – there's no reason to show or tell everybody what you're thinking, after all – but I gave a grin nonetheless.

When we landed, there was a bit of a surprise waiting for us. As the hatch opened, I saw a tall, thin man standing in front of the hallways entrance. His brown hair was cut short, and slightly messily for a member of the military. He wore a neatly trimmed goatee, and had wide blue eyes. Despite his good looks, he was not a young man by any means, looking nearer forty than not. It was Commander Kinkade, of course.

When he stepped forward the first thing I'd seen was the stars on his uniform. He had me worried half to death that I hadn't done well enough in the mission, and was to be cut from XCOM. After that feeling I had on the field, that was the worst possible thing I could've imagined. He didn't say anything about failing, though.

"Rookie Adrianna Coe, for your prowess in battle, I hereby promote you to the rank of Squad Member." His voice was firm, and somehow after hearing him I wanted to fight even more just to hear it again. It was almost disappointing when he turned to Ben.

"Benjamin Angel, for your prowess in battle, I hereby promote you to the rank of Squad Member."

Ben's large features widened in a smile as the Commander stepped down to Ellen.

"Ellen Reach, for your prowess in battle, I hereby promote you to the rank of Squad Member."

Stepping back from us all, he looked us over and then made a note of something on his clipboard.

"Please report to the barracks for your assignment of class."

With that, he turned to Bradford and handed him the clipboard before walking out of the room and down the hallway. From the chance I'd had to study the map of the facility, he was probably heading down to the research labs. I hadn't met Dr. Vahlen yet, but I'd certainly heard a _lot_ about her, as well as her counterpart in Engineering.

The four of us marched in formation down to the barracks, Ellen and Ben cracking jokes while Christopher stayed silent with me in the back. I wondered if he was upset that he hadn't been promoted – it wasn't his fault that he hadn't been able to take a shot in the battle.

Once we got there, a munitions officer whose nametag read _Lamar, James_ approached us.

"Coe, Angel, and Reach?" he said in a bored voice.

We saluted, and Christopher stepped to his bunk.

"Follow me, please."

I'd never been in the munitions depot of XCOM before, and it was an eye-opener. There were enough old guns back there to take over a small South American country, or maybe even a large one.

First he picked up a shotgun off the wall and handed it to Ellen.

"Squaddie Reach, you've been assigned assault class. Your job is to run in fast and take out the X-Rays before they can react. You'll begin training for it later today after you've cleaned yourself and eaten."

Next he picked up a string of grenades that had a large "S" imprinted on them, and were a different shape from the normal ones we'd been given before the mission.

"Squaddie Angel, you've been assigned to the support class. You'll be keeping that AK of yours, but you'll also be trained in the use of these smoke grenades to provide cover for your squadmates. Take care of them."

I wasn't sure if he'd meant the grenades or the squadmates, but now he was grabbing a long scoped rifle off of the rack and walking towards me, and I barely had time to think before it was in my hands and he was reading off his list in that same bored voice.

"Squaddie Coe, you've been assigned to be a sniper. Apparently you displayed unusual aiming skills in the battle. If you can keep up those headshots in the training room, you might amount to something someday."

With that he walked away, leaving us wondering what was coming next.

…

The next day, I was wandering around the base trying to get the hang of the layout, when I ran into Ben.

"Look what Dr. Shen gave me!" he said proudly, lifting a strangely shaped red piece of equipment and presenting it for me to inspect. There was a handle to grip and a nozzle at one end, but other than that I had no idea what its use could possibly be.

"What's it do?" I asked. "Some kind of new weapon?"

He shook his head.

"No, it's a medikit! Apparently Dr. Shen developed some kind of nanospray that can heal up wounds quicker than anything else – you'll feel like you're fine within seconds."

My eyes sure widened at that one.

"Seriously? Why hasn't anyone heard of this stuff? Why isn't it on the market?"

Ben shrugged.

"Dr. Shen said that it hadn't been tested for side effects yet, so that might have something to do with it. Plus, it only lasts for six hours. After that, unless you're at a place that can give good medical care, your wounds will be just as bad as they were before this stuff was sprayed on you. Having that kind of trauma happen to you doesn't leave you with nothing, you know."

I suppose that made sense. Despite that, even as I walked away from Ben towards the research labs, I wondered. I sure understood why you should keep technology like that under wraps from the rest of the world. I was just surprised that someone else thought the same way.

…

I felt out of place in Dr. Vahlen's territory.

Not just because she was a gorgeous German scientist with smooth brown hair that made my own raven strands look like straw, but because everything about the place she worked in felt alien to me.

No, not that kind of alien.

It was all so white and clean, sterilized and protected. The people here had never felt danger in its personal form, never faced life or death situations.

Still, I decided it was worth talking to her, so I walked up and held out my hand.

"I'm Anna Coe. I'm a bit new around here, just joined up and fought in the battle yesterday. Hope you're doing good work with those corpses we brought back for you."

She smiled before hesitantly taking my hand as if it was some kind of new specimen.

"Yes, Anna. Hello, my name is Dr. Moira Vahlen. Thank you, by the by, for bringing back such good specimens, it is most useful that you used no grenades. After that kind of explosive damage… well, I'm afraid that corpses are all we get. No weapon fragments, which look to be the most interesting of our potential research subjects."

"What are you working on now?" I asked. I'll admit, I was curious. We'd just encountered alien life, they had to be doing _something_ down here.

"Xeno-biology, a fascinating field." She turned away from me back to her databases, my face already half-way forgotten. "We're trying to map this alien species entire genome, although I'm not entirely sure it will be possible using our existing DNA sequencing techniques. Further research and specimens may be necessary…"

I thought for a moment about bidding her farewell, then realized that she probably wouldn't notice even if I did. Back to the barracks it was. There was never anything wrong with more training, after all. I wanted to be able to make headshots perfectly.

…

Another day had passed. I'd gotten to know the girls who bunked to my left and my right a little bit better – one of them I'd met my first day here, a Russian named Varsha Patel. The other was Ellen Reach.

Of the two of them, Ellen was always the one that was the jokester. She had kind of a babyface, and she used it to its fullest extent. I don't know why we all laughed so much, if you'd asked me before I'd have said that making faces was juvenile.

Varsha was a bit quieter (which isn't saying much) but more aggressive too. She used her rifle like it was a cannon in the training room, and lifted weights long after the rest of us had hung up our towels. For all that, she was a good kid. Helpful, at least, and kind. Loved American comics, had a stack of them under her bunk. Manga, too. I tried to get her to read some of my favorite books one time, but she was never all that into it. It was the art that caught her eye.

Four days after we'd come back, the alarm went on, and Commander Kinkade walked into the barracks with a grim look on his face.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I have just received word that three alien attacks are currently ongoing. As you know, XCOM's funds and manpower are severely limited, and we do not have the manpower, speed, or resources to deal with any more than one of those attack sites. I have been forced to choose which one of them to rescue, and I have chosen. Squaddie Coe, Squaddie Reach, Squaddie Angel, and Rookie Patel. Suit up and report to the Skyranger in five."

With that, he turned and left, and the barracks turned into a mad scramble for equipment.

As the four of us piled into the back of the Skyranger, I realized I'd wished for more time in the training room. I didn't think my headshot was quite up to par yet.

…

_Hello, loyal fantasticks! _

_Well, here we are again. Yes, I prepared these chapters ahead of time. Now, aren't you grateful enough to leave a review? You are? Aw, shucks, fellas. You're too kind._

_Anyways, here's the continuing adventures of my squad, which is (let me remind you here) an actual squad in an actual game of XCOM: Enemy Within that I am playing. I'm also hoping that none of the people who appear in XCOM: To Boldly Go die in my game. That would cause rather serious breaches in the space-time continuum. _

_Sincerely,_

_~The Once and Future Overlord_


	3. Roanoke 3

**Vigilo Confido**

…

_*static*_

"We have visual on the mission site, setting down."

That was what the pilot said when we got to where the abductions had been called in. Edmonten, Canada, I think? Somewhere in Canada, anyway. It's been a while, so cut me some slack if my memory's not perfect here.

Bradford's voice came in over the comm as we set down.

"We're heading to Canada for this one, and we need to get down there fast. We've picked up a local broadcast indicating alien activity within a major metropolitan area. We should get down there and eliminate any hostiles."

The others went ahead on this mission, I hung back a bit. Kind of wanted to see if I could make those headshots, but that wasn't the way the dice rolled on this one. So be it.

Ellen and Varsha got up there, though, and were the first to encounter aliens. I tried to move up and get in position as fast as I could, but I only got there in time to see everything go down.

There were four Sectoids – that's what the doc was calling them, anyway – and Ellen and Varsha hiding behind some cover aiming at them. The bullets flew, Ellen took out her man and Varsha took out hers, and then they started shooting back.

That green plasma of theirs… no matter how much time's gone by, when I look at it I still think of them. It hit Varsha dead center, right on the chestplate of her body armor. She gave this horrible little grunt, like there was too much pain to even scream, and then steadied herself and shot the head off the little grey piece of filth that did that to her. Ellen took out the other one fast enough.

That seemed to be pretty much all the X-Rays had on the ground at the time, so we all got around Varsha and opened up her armor.

It looked…

_*heavy sigh*_

… It was bad. Weird thing is, the heat from the plasma's probably what saved her life. Sure, it seriously screwed up her internal organs, but it cauterized the wound so she didn't bleed out. It felt like a pretty close thing once or twice on the flight back, though. We weren't sure she was going to make it.

_*brief silence*_

Damn her.

_*sound of glass clinking and liquid being poured*_

Well. Of course there were some promotions waiting for us when we got back. Ellen had made Corporal. According to her, the officer told her that with her kind of personality, she could have either an aggressive spirit or a tactical one.

She told him she was an idiot and threatened to have him court-martialed and hung up by his figgin. Whatever a figgin is.

_*sound of liquid being drunk*_

And Varsha made Squaddie with the rest of us. She was to be a Heavy Weapons Specialist, carrying around some ridiculously gigantic gun that would've looked like she was compensating for something if she'd been carrying a Y chromosome around too. Got herself a rocket launcher and everything.

I heard that the Commander was pretty worried about us getting hurt for nothing, so he launched a satellite over Africa to give some coverage there, watch out for UFOs. Ellen joked that he'd put another star in the sky for every time they dared touch us – the invincible XCOM.

Couple days later, Dr. Vahlen rushes through the barracks all excited. Says she's got Xeno-biology researched, that she figured out the gene sequencing. That the Sectoids aren't too different from humans on the inside. That maybe we can stun them, drag them back here, and try to get some good information out of them.

Apparently she started working on the materials we got from the X-Rays after that – all I know is that five days or so later, a package came to the barracks from Engineering. Two white vests were inside.

They felt as smooth as silk, but were apparently harder than steel. They'd block incoming fire pretty well, according to Dr. Shen, and might save a life or two on the battlefield.

Personally, I'd wait to thank Dr. Vahlen until I saw whether or not they actually worked. In any event, she'd delved into the weapon fragments that were always left behind when we killed one of the aliens. Was hoping she'd be able to eventually get the kind of weapons they had. Ours weren't always as effective as we'd have liked.

Before she could finish it, though – well, life happens. Extraterrestrial life, sure, but that's life, right?

The satellite we'd put up was picking up an enemy contact. For the first time, we were going to see whether or not Earth tech could bring down what was the equivalent of an enemy weather balloon. Not exactly their most powerful ship, but if we could bring down event that, it'd be worth it.

Our old Raven interceptors had been tricked out and upgraded in the hangar so much that you almost forgot about how they hadn't been in use for a decade or so.

I still remember how everyone was gathered around Mission Control, watching the screen, waiting for the little green dot to blink out, and the little red dot would zip off into the sunset, never to be seen again. Or worse, to be seen again with a thousand or so of its friends.

Then the little red dot blinked out, and the room exploded. Everyone was cheering, screaming, high-fiving each other. We felt young again, like little kids playing.

Then the satellite images came in, showing that the UFO was still intact on the ground, and I realized that I'd be heading into that. I got a lot quieter all of a sudden, but I guess that's only natural.

Ben was already in the barracks putting on the new vest when I got back. Varsha was checking her equipment by her bunk.

"You ready?" she said quietly.

I didn't think that that was a question that really needed an answer, so I just slammed a clip into my sniper rifle as a response. I could see her stifle a grin out of the corner of my eye. Don't know what she's laughing about, it's a perfectly acceptable comeback.

The nanofiber slipped easily onto me – I've yet to find a piece of clothing that didn't, I've always been painfully thin. It felt soft, smooth, and cool against my skin.

Ellen wouldn't be coming along for this one. Commander Kinkade wanted Christopher along, so Christopher would be coming, and that was that.

The Skyranger again. There's only so many times I can think of words for "noisy", "awkward", and "cramped". I noticed that Ben had brought his iPod, and I had a moment of wishing I'd thought of that. Some music on the way would relieve the tension, at least.

When we landed, the direction of the crashed ship was immediately evident. Just follow the 30 yard scar in the ground that dragged off into the distance, leaving burning and torn trees behind…

This time, I decided, I wasn't about to be left behind. I took point, climbing various bits of terrain until I got my first good look at the UFO. It was a bit smaller than I'd thought it'd be, but I didn't have too much time to pay attention to that. Mostly due to the pair of Sectoids I'd startled…

They gave their little screech and ran into cover, mind-melding as they did so. One of them managed to flank me, and all I could think of as I saw those green bolts coming towards me was, "I don't want to die."

To this day I don't know how I did it, but I lived. That green shit went all over my armor, burning through it. I could feel the heat, but I tore it off me and lived and suddenly there was the mind-melding alien right there, wide open. The rest of the squad wasn't here yet, so I'd have to…

Deep breath. Draw your target. Remember to adjust for the distance and the scoping.

Give it a squeeze, as gently as a butterfly's flap.

Boom. Headshot.

Scratch two X-Rays.

We moved up on the ship bit by bit, hearing Vahlen's voice over the comm fan-girling over the materials it must have been made out of to survive a crash like that. When we pop down the energy field, green fire shoots out and hits Varsha, again. She stifled a scream, but Ben was by her side in a moment, spraying that medikit like there was no tomorrow. After that she seemed better, and she made sure the Sectoid that wounded her didn't get another shot at it.

But there was something else in there. Some kind of – well, Vahlen called it a "being of almost pure energy". Back at the base, after she'd had time to think, she classified it as a silicon-based life form.

All we saw, out there in the field, was a weird, crystal-like thing that unfolded until it was an intimidatingly sleek creature with accuracy that was deadly as hell. Before it could get any dangerous shots off, though, McKay slipped in behind it, unloading enough rounds into it to take out any Sectoid. It disappeared after that, to the confusion of pretty much everyone there.

As we headed through the rest of the UFO, I spotted another Sectoid and took it out. All in a day's work. I can't help it if I love the headshots so much, can I?

Back at the base, Commander Kinkade was handing out yet more promotions. I started to wonder how much of turnover rate they had, being able to afford so many new officers.

Chris made Squaddie, and a rocket launcher was waiting for him when he got back to barracks.

Ben and I both made Corporal, and were told to report to the training school for our various rewards of rank. His was a choice between extra distance training and reflexive conditioning, if I remember rightly. Mine was a shiny new toy from Vahlen and Shen – a HUD unit that hooked into my sniper rifle. With it, I could aim at anything my squadmates could see.

Figure that should be useful down the line.

_*a chair creaks*_

I've got to take a break. I've been sitting here too long anyway, have to go train.

_*here the tape skips, as if it ended and was then resumed at a later date*_

Now then, where was I… Yeah, right at the end of our first UFO mission…

When we got back, we realized that Chris had taken a shot as well. His wasn't quite as life-threatening as Varsha's had been, but we still send him off to the medbay.

We'd just finished upacking our things, getting ready to hit the showers, when the Commander showed up, grim-faced as ever.

"Special mission from the World Security Council," he said tersely, "bomb disposal. You're up."

Ellen looked at him in shock, then at me, as if to ask whether this was just as horrifying when viewed on my end. We were getting hit with another mission, _immediately_ after a UFO cleanup where two of our men had been wounded, one badly?

Yeah, we were. That's XCOM, baby.

That was when I noticed that the Commander had brought someone with him in the room – kind of a young guy, he looked to be 22, maybe 23 at most.

"Rookie Hansen will be the third member of your squad for this operation," Kinkade continued, "and this man here will be the fourth."

Even though he was young, I couldn't help but get a sense of almost frightening focus about him. As Caesar said of Cassius, he had a lean and hungry look. Such men, as said Shakespeare, are dangerous.

I didn't mind overly much. It was XCOM, after all. We needed men like that more than anyone else. When you joined up with us, you either liked it or you hit the road. I liked it, but I wasn't too sure about anybody else. Still, this kid seemed all right.

Almost reluctantly, Ellen and I started strapping our armor back on and checking our gear. Rolf Hansen from a few bunks down joined us – this would be his first mission against aliens, though word on the mess hall was that he'd made quite a name for himself as a medic in Africa already. Different kind of monsters down there, though.

I decide to take my sketchpad with me on the Skyranger. I feel like I haven't drawn anything in far too long; I need to get back into the groove.

For fun I start sketching out the side of the young man's head as he cleans his gun slowly. He's got a handsome face like the Commander, but it's hard, as if set in stone. Good-looking like a Greek statue, and even as I'm drawing him I feel like he's nothing more than stone, just sculpted rock that moves.

I'm probably being hypocritical here. It's not like I'm somebody who shows a lot of emotions, I know.

Ellen looks over at me.

"You draw?"

I gave her a look.

"No, I'm just pretending. Don't spoil it, though, you'll ruin the surprise."

She rolled her eyes.

"Fine, be that way. Still, I didn't know you could draw. Guess we all have hidden talents."

"This was my hidden talent. I was an art student before I came here, it wasn't hidden at all. This…" I gestured at my guns and armor. "This is my hidden talent."

She nodded slowly.

"Guess I can see how that'd work out. I suppose you could say that my talent's singing, if anything. Back home I had a twin sister – used to sing harmony with her and my other sisters all the time."

Rolf spoke up, for the first time since we'd taken off.

"I wish I could have heard you. I would think that you sounded like angels of God."

Ellen blushed prettily, and I snorted.

"Everyone has something," she answered delicately, "what's your talent, Rolf?"

He grimaced.

"Don't know if I have one. Maybe cooking. I would always cook for Luda when she came for dinner. She was bollocks at cooking, but she said that I should have a restaurant."

"What about you?" Ellen directed this question towards our silent fourth.

Finally he looked up at her, and when he spoke I shivered slightly, and immediately felt bad for doing so.

"I'm an actor. I've been told I'm very good at it. I also play the piano, though, and that talent tends to make people more comfortable than the other."

After that voice echoing through the Skyranger, nobody really felt like talking. That was the kind of voice that you could imagine being a Macbeth, or a Hamlet. Some great, powerful voice, on par with Morgan Freeman and Christopher Lee.

The ETA read 10 minutes.

Finally, I spoke up.

"Ellen. Let's have a song, huh?"

She bit her lip nervously, but nodded and began thinking. After a minute, she opened her mouth, and the sweetest, clearest voice I've heard in my life came out in soft tones.

"_As I went down to the river to pray,  
studying about that good old way  
and who should wear the robe and crown  
Good Lord, show me the way_

_Oh, brothers, let's go down  
Let's go down, come on down  
Oh, brothers, let's go down  
Down to the river to pray._"

…

_Hello, loyal fantasticks!_

_Thus concludes another chapter. Hope you're all enjoying the adventures of Miss Coe and company. For some reason I can't think of a long author's note for this one, so instead I'll just exhort you to review! Review! Review! Because that's what an author loves best.  
Although obviously favorites and follows are pretty fun too.  
A final note: If you, for whatever reason, just absolutely HATE the story (or even mildly dislike it), then let me know in a review as well. Not in an anonymous one, though, because then I have no idea how to address the points you brought up, and I DO want to fix it when things go wrong with a story of mine._

_Sincerely,_

_~The Once and Future Overlord_


	4. Masquerade 1

**Vigilo Confido**

…

_*static*_

Blood and death.

That was all I could see. The entire train station was soaked in it. I don't know how many people had managed to get away, if any had, but it wasn't enough.

There were bodies everywhere, scattered around and opened up as if the aliens were curious children wondering what was inside a favorite toy.

I didn't notice those too much, though, not until afterwards. When you're in the heat of the mission, I guess I have the kind of mind that categorizes other people dying under "Unimportant". Probably because it's not me.

What I did notice was the glowing green nodes dotted around the station, and the ominous beeping that echoed around the empty trains.

Dr. Shen's voice came in over our comms, telling us that the X-Rays had placed a bomb of some kind in the station, that we had to find it and disarm it fast or else the entire city would be destroyed. That disabling the green nodes would give us more time.

That was all I needed to hear, so I started running forward.

When I looked to my left, I saw that the squad was running behind me – Rolf bringing up the rear, Ellen in front of him, and the fourth guy holding position in second.

"Paint girl, look out!" he yelled, and I turned back to my front just in time to see a startled Sectoid run off into one of the abandoned trains.

I pulled out my pistol as quick as I could and fired at it, hitting it good. Unfortunately, the grey suckers were damn tough, and I only wounded it. We took positions behind some plants and advertisement boards, but next thing we knew there was a sound coming in from above us.

I didn't know what it was at first, I thought it must've been some kind of human defector who joined up with the X-Rays. Then I saw the eyes behind those glasses, and I knew that human was the one thing it wasn't.

Next thing I knew, Ellen was dashing forward, already bringing her shotgun up. Whatever that creature was, it didn't have time to do much more than hiss before she fired smack-dab into its chest. When she hit it like that, though, I noticed something funny about its blood. As soon as it hit the air, it dispersed into some kind of weird cloud.

"Stay away from that cloud!" I hissed to her.

She spat something towards me in a rather universal sign of acknowledgement, hissing back a few words that made it rather evident she had already been planning on such action.

Ellen was inside the train at this point, hiding behind one of the partitions, and I realized with horror that the wounded Sectoid was less than ten feet away behind another one. It gave one of those little shrieks and fired its pistol right at her.

When the grit cleared, Ellen's cover was absolutely destroyed, and she was already unloading a shotgun shell into the Sectoid.

I almost felt sorry for it for a second there.

Didn't have too much time for that, though, since a second one popped into view a couple seconds later. I took it out with a headshot. I remember thinking that its yellow blood looked so weird next to the red that was everywhere else.

Ellen's scream of pain came almost out of nowhere.

When I looked back, I saw that she'd gone ahead and disarmed one of the glowing power nodes, but had startled another Sectoid when she did so.

I started towards her, but her voice came over the comm, strained and gasping.

"Don't – don't come. I've got it. Stay back and watch out for incoming X-Rays.. Ugh… I can see the bomb, I'll disarm it and then come back. I'm fine."

A squad has to trust each other. The three of us took up positions, watching all angles we could find, as we listened to scattered gunfire. I think all three let out a breath we'd been holding when we realized that the final shot had been Ellen's shotgun.

A moment after that, there was the lessening of a deep hum that nobody had noticed was even there, and that horrible beeping sound finally stopped.

"Got it."

Ellen was practically biting out the words.

Suddenly more of those long, thin creatures dropped out of the ceiling – one onto the top of the train, the other one somewhere behind some advertisement signs.

We all tried firing at the one on the train, but… Look, we were startled.

_*short, sharp laugh*_

I'm pretty sure that Ellen was the only one who actually hit it. At least she wounded it with her pistol. She bought enough time for me to finish it off, anyway.

Next thing I knew, I was turning around to see the rookie emptying his rifle as cool as you please into the second one that was trying to sneak up on us.

Bradford's voice came over the comm, saying something about how good a job we'd done, and how the aliens were all gone now.

I almost said something that would've gotten me court-martialed for that one. All gone? We stopped one tiny plan in a train station. There might've been millions, billions, maybe trillions of these things. All I wanted to see right now was Ellen.

When I finally did, I almost wished I hadn't.

Her body armor was almost all gone across her stomach. It looked like the Sectoid had emptied a bucket's worth of plasma into her, and she was pale from loss of blood. We tried to stabilize her as best we could in the Skyranger, but it was a troop transport. It didn't have any kind of medical supplies, any kind of anything, and the doc's face looked pretty grave when we brought her in at HQ.

Commder Kinkade came by and said that she was being promoted to a Sergeant for her courage on the battlefield, and that she'd be sent to training for reflexes as soon as she recovered.

He gave me a nod too – I'd be making Sergeant with her, and was supposed to start practicing aim at targets below me. Said it'd give me a good advantage over them.

Rolf made Squaddie for some reason. I guess they'll promote just about anyone to that after they've seen some real action. He's going to be picking up his smoke grenades tomorrow.

"Hey, Paint."

There wasn't a chance in hell I'd mistake that voice.

"How's our little songbird doing?"

I turned to him.

"Is that what you do or something? Just give people nicknames?"

He shrugged.

"You should feel honored. Most people I don't bother thinking of at all. Why remember their name when they're just going to end up dead, one way or the other?"

I sat heavily in my bunk.

"That doesn't sound like the kind of thing someone who's supposed to be a defender of humanity should be saying."

He gave me a wide, happy grin.

"What can I say, Paint? It's the family business. Besides, if you think about it, it's not really about defending humanity as it is about killing aliens. That's the fun part, you know."

I gave him a Look, and was a bit surprised when he gave me one right back.

"What? Don't you tell me that that's not why you're out here. It IS fun, and you know it."

"Look," I sighed, "even if that's true – which I'll neither confirm nor deny – then shouldn't you have a bit of thought for the people who are fighting alongside you? They might save your life someday. Sure, you don't have to give a damn about the rest of the people in the world, they don't affect you personally all that much, but… At the least, the people here definitely do."

He leaned towards me, and I didn't realize what he was doing until he'd already kissed me.

"I like you," he said off-handedly, "and I think we should continue this later."

The conversation, or…? I shook my head to clear it.

"What's your name, Squaddie?"

He called it out as he left the barracks.

"Adam. Adam Peters."

…

"New training regimen instituted for all units."

Bradford's voice still annoyed me, and I was pretty sure it always would.

"From now on, all units are to spend field duty in the Grey Market when not engaged in missions."

On the bunk next to me, Varsha rolled her eyes and groaned.

"Great, now we must have wet work in addition to killing things from outer space. As if was not enough already. In Russia, you know…"

"I know, I know," I griped back, "in Soviet Russia, space explore you."

She frowned.

"Do you even know what wet work is? Paint, this thing is not something to ignore."

"Maybe if your speech patterns were a bit smoother you'd have told me by now." I said dryly.

Moving over to my bunk, she sat down and put one hand on my shoulder. I twitched a bit, as one tends to do at the touch of a 180 pound muscle-bound Russian.

"Paint," she said gently, "wet work is when you go into civilian places and you kill them. It is assassination, it is murder."

"Why would we need to do that for the grey market?"

From across the line of bunks, Rolf Hansen snorted.

"Have you ever worked the Grey Market?" he asked. "It's a nightmare. Half of the people you're selling the stuff to don't believe you've actually got alien corpses, and the half that do try to kill you on arrival."

He sat up and moved towards us.

"I had to work there for five years. I've got to admit, most of the stuff we were selling them was fake. I can't imagine how much worse it is out there now that it's not."

I noticed that Munitions Officer Lamar had walked into the room and put up a list on the wall. My name was first, I saw as I moved near it.

"Commander wants to see you in the training school," he yawned, "so I'd get down there if I were you."

When the brass says jump, you ask how high, so I put on my armor and got on down to the training school.

Commander Kinkade looked… older, somehow. Like something had happened to him that tore him up inside, and all that was holding him together was his duty. When he saw me, he straightened and saluted.

"Sergeant Coe," he said crisply, "I'm glad I was able to see you today."

"Sir," I answered, putting as much respect into my voice as I could without seeming obsequious.

"As you no doubt saw," he began, "your name is first up for the Grey Market assignments. Starting today, you'll be on a trip down to Los Angeles to try to sell some Sectoid corpses. These will net valuable funds for the XCOM project."

I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I didn't say anything, and waited quietly with my hands behind my back.

"Now then," he said slowly, "there's one more thing about your mission. More specifically, when you get back from it. You've made the rank of Sergeant now, and I believe it's time for you to start acting like it. You and Sergeant Reach are our only two ranking officers on field. Do you believe that you will be able to lead these men and women in battle?"

That was something that _did _require a response, so I gave him my best salute and answered.

"Yes, sir."

"Then on your next mission against the X-Rays, you'll be leading a squad. Four XCOM agents and yourself. Think you can handle it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then get to your barracks, soldier. You've got some wet work to do."

…

_Hello, loyal fantasticks!_

_After some thought, I decided that my explanations for the officer training school powers were the best explanations. If you think otherwise, then oops. Anyway, I'm looking forward to meeting you all again next week with Sergeant Coe and her team! … And her return to her home town…_

_Sincerely,_

_~The Once and Future Overlord_


	5. Masquerade 2

**Vigilo Confido**

…

_*static*_

All the Commander gave me was a truck full of corpses and an address to get them to. It'd be a long drive – all the way to L.A. – and time wasn't something I could afford to waste.

Apparently the good doctor'd be researching some of that orange goop we picked up on the last op. None of us knew what it was just yet, only that the X-Rays had been sticking it in humans and seeing what stuck. Hell, it had a self-destruct on it, so it must've been worth something, right?

I had five Sectoid corpses in the back, with orders from the Commander to never get less than $500,000 for each one. I wasn't sure if I could, to be honest – I mean, I was pretty sure he'd worked it all out with the people beforehand, but I had no clue what I was supposed to do if one of them offered, say, $400,000.

I was halfway to Los Angeles before I realized that I'd be within a few miles of my family there.

Should I stop by and see them? It was kind of on my way.

Probably a bad idea, really. Any time wasted was time I could spend training, and if training meant making myself just one bit better to fight the aliens, well, sign me up!

My contact was… Eh. Let's say he wasn't very eye-catching. Had the kind of face that was forgettable, you know? I'd never done anything like this before in my life, so I wasn't sure if I was supposed to open negotiations with some kind of special handshake or what.

From the look on his face when I tried it, I guessed the handshake thing was a bust.

"You the contact?" he growled.

Jeez. What'd these guys do, take the Christian Bale School of Voice Acting or something?

"That's me." I did my honest best to growl back, but it sounded like a cat with a sore throat even to me.

After a slightly incredulous look, he finally shifted and moved his coat to reveal a largish briefcase.

"I've got the full amount here. Five hundred thousand for a real life 'alien'. And it better be real, my boss doesn't like disappointments."

"It's real all right," I told him with a grin, "I'd say I killed it myself, but sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction."

He narrowed his eyes, and the elusive briefcase grew more elusive for a moment, drawing back into the depths of his coat. Who wears a coat in a Los Angeles summer?

"What's your name and agent number?" He sounded suspicious, and I started to be glad I was still wearing that nanovest under my civvies.

"Name's Corporal Adrianna Coe. And, uh, I forget my agent number. Can you give me a second?"

The frown deepened, and the briefcase disappeared entirely.

"My boss doesn't like cheats. Or liars."

I frowned in turn.

"Don't you kind of have to be a liar to be a cheat? It's a bit of a prerequisite."

_*heavy sigh*_

That was where things got kind of crazy, again.

First I saw of it was a bit of dull metal in his hand, then a really loud crack that still felt just as loud as those heavy X-9's that the rookies back at base used.

Always thought pistols would be quieter somehow. Guess the movies spoiled me.

Even with the nanovest on, it hurt, bad. Like getting punched in the chest by Spiderman, or maybe Batman on a really good day. I didn't have time to react – I wasn't _that_ good yet – I just fell flat on my ass thinking to myself really loudly.

_Fuck, I think I'm going to die._

_Not even because of a goddamn alien. Just because of a stupid, greedy man on a concrete street._

I don't think he was expecting me to not be dead, though, or at least that's what I assumed when he turned away and I shot him in the head.

Honestly, everyone should just aim for the head. You can never really tell whether people are wearing body armor under their clothes or not anyway, but you can always tell with the head.

The shot looked like a nine millimeter and felt like a tank shell. It'd broken the skin, and was definitely going to leave a bruise for a few days.

Plus these were some of the only good civilian clothes I had left. XCOM didn't leave you a whole lot of room in the bunks.

I took his briefcase anyway. Bastard only had a hundred thousand in there, and I was pretty sure that the Commander (not to mention Bradford) would give me a severe Look if I came back to base with only twenty percent of what I was expected to bring.

Now, of course, was the perfect time to get a call from Central on my comm.

"Agent Coe, come in."

I cleared my throat before starting, possibly due to some ancient cultural tradition of nervousness that associated itself with shortage of breath.

"I'm here, Central. I'll be back at base within two to three days, easily. No worries on this end."

"Agent Coe, this contact is to confirm that the Sectoid corpses you are selling do not get to the wrong kinds of people. Certain pharmaceutical companies would do anything to get their hands on them."

I briefly considered lugging the corpses to a pharmaceutical company and seeing if "anything" involved four hundred thousand dollars or so, then realized that they'd just end up killing me even faster than Briefcase Guy had tried to.

There was only one thing to do.

…

…

…

…

…

A week and a half later I woke up in the Medical Bay of XCOM HQ.

To be fair, I'd been pretty sure that the thing with the squid wouldn't work. I'd just tried it because there'd been nothing else to do at that point.

After that came the slight heart attack I had upon realizing that Vahlen was standing over my bed.

God, that woman had the worst bedside manner in the galaxy, and yes I certainly was going to include the damned Sectoids in that classification.

"Good morning," she said frostily.

"Is it?" I asked weakly.

There was a silence that was so pregnant it could've had its own TV show.

Finally she replied.

"It is not morning," she began, "it is technically late evening, Eastern Standard Time. I would give you the time of day, but it will not matter much as you are about to undergo major surgery. Which, unless you are even more of a masochist than you appear to be, would also seem to preclude the 'good' part of my statement."

"Major surgery for what?"

From the table by the bed, she picked up a clipboard with several papers on it.

"Would you prefer by degree of how difficult it will be for me to do, or alphabetically?"

"The difficulty one, please, starting with the hardest."

I could've sworn I saw her cheer up for just a second, but that may have been her getting ready to tell me what she was planning to do.

"In that case: you require surgical reconstruction of the spinal cord, the setting of a broken arm in five places and a broken arm in three places, the setting of a broken leg in two places, a ruptured spleen, severe lacerations along the left side of your face, two broken teeth and…"

She checked the clipboard.

"… A bruise centered almost directly on your right breast. Did you happen to get shot recently?"

"… Maybe. Look, before you put me under again, can you at least tell me what's been going on?"

Vahlen sighed.

"I understand, Corporal, that XCOM troops must be extremely brave to undergo all that they do. The problem here is that I am not sure how much you would understand."

I frowned. I may have been an art student, but that didn't mean I was stupid.

"Say stuff at me and stop when my eyes glaze over."

"When your eyes glaze over it will be due to the sedative," she said dryly, "but very well. This, eh… Your mission report described it as 'orange goop', I think… Myself and Dr. Shen call it MELD. It is… beautiful."

She started getting a Look in her eyes. The kind of Look that would generally be battery operated, but heck, who was I to judge…

"It is composed of millions of miniature cyber-organic nanites, suspended in a gel-like solution. It can connect organic tissue to organic tissue, or organic tissue to mechanical components if you want to be crass about the whole thing… Really, it is due mostly to MELD that you are as recovered as you are now. The Commander has ordered that a new Genetics Laboratory be constructed, and then you will really see something!"

I nodded, starting to regret I'd asked. Maybe I could just check out the database later. Vahlen's reports were pretty dry, but at least you could reread them when you didn't understand what the hell she was talking about.

"Oh, and Private Hansen died in action. He was on your squad, yes? So sorry. Time for the sedative now."

She didn't even give me time to react before sticking me with the needles.

…

…

…

…

…

And as I slept, I dreamed.

I dreamed I was standing before a great house, all dark and forbidding, with black paint peeling and windows boarded up. I dreamed I was a knight, trying to get inside the house to slay the giant who lived there. As I walked through the house, I battled fierce monsters and killed them, but then came upon a monster that was too fierce and too powerful for me.

I dreamed I died.

And I saw in my dream that I had become a beautiful lady, with words so smooth and ideas so convincing that whoever heard me would become enraptured by me. I came to the monster that had killed me and I lulled it to sleep with my words, so that it never even felt the dagger at its throat. But as I walked through the house, I discovered many devices and intricate traps.

I dreamed that I died.

In my dream I saw that I had become a clever engineer, who had built many things of ingenuity. I built ways to get around the traps, bypasses for the dangers, and helpful tools for myself. There was no room that could hold me in that house.  
But when I came upon a monster – even the weakest of them – I found that I had no sword, and could not fight.

I dreamed that I died.

…

..

…

…

…

I spent a couple of days wandering around the facilities while I recovered – before I'd remembered that if I was well enough to wander around, I was well enough to fight.

Before that, though, I at least got a good look at the new Cybernetics Lab they were building. They told me that once it was done, we'd finally have an edge over the aliens. We'd be able to put men and women in humongous battle-suits that could take a bit of plasma fire before going down like the rookies in the field did.

They didn't answer me when I asked them how it'd work, though. For some reason, they almost looked ashamed at the question.

After that, I paid a visit to the rec room. We had a pretty good one here at XCOM – most of the soldiers chipped in on a bunch of luxuries, since there wasn't much else we'd be spending our ridiculously huge paycheck on.

When you signed up for XCOM, you got a million dollars.

Not weekly or monthly or anything, you understand, just… a million dollars. For some people, a flat paycheck like that might've been incentive to take it and run, but after a week or two of wet work nobody was that stupid.

The full million was still sitting in my bank account. I couldn't bring myself to use it for anything.

I understood why it was that much, at least. The life of an XCOM trooper wasn't exactly safe – most of the time, they got to take back that million. From the scuttlebutt in the barracks, we were pulling somewhere around a seventy-five percent casualty rate per mission.

I hadn't seen Ellen or Varsha for a few days, let alone Adam, and I was starting to get a little worried.

What can I say? I figured that it couldn't hurt to check up on them in the database. And if the database was off-limits to a lowly Sergeant such as myself, well… Surely that was no fault of mine, yeah?

Turns out there's a reason they don't let those in the field into the Situation Room.

The first time I stepped in there, I had no idea what everything meant, what everything did… I just stood there looking at all the pretty lights and baubles for a minute like an idiot. I'd picked a good time to check in – about four AM, so there wasn't anyone there – but still, time was a-wasting.

The big screen was showing a map of the world, with a constant stream of news updates running along the bottom. Maybe it was wrong of me, but when I saw that Japan was nearly overrun by the aliens, I laughed a little.

I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going.

As I watched, though… I felt like there weren't very many reasons to laugh anymore. Too many dead, too many pictures that were being put up on the wall by the pool table.

It had started out as something small, just a picture of someone's dead friend. The next KIA, someone added that guy too, and… it kind of grew from there.

All I could do was hope that the Commander knew what he was doing.

When I checked in on Ellen, it listed her as currently away on a mission. At least that seemed all right.

Adam was listed as – away on a covert operation?

The hell was a covert operation?

…

The hell is EXALT?

…

There didn't seem to be anything in the system about them yet, only a brief note mentioning an operation near a convoy in France, where a single survivor was recovered.

Varsha was listed as wounded in action, but her estimated recovery was pretty soon. There, at least, I'd have someone to talk to.

That was around when a heard a soft cough from behind me, and the Commander politely asking me not to move.

…

…

…

…

…

_Hello, loyal fantasticks!_

_I've been working hard this weekend, but regretfully, not so much on the stories I have… hopefully this brief snippet is an all right transition to the next big line I have planned._

_Thanks, as always, for the reviews, follows, favorites, and the like. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are!_

_~The Once and Future Overlord_


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